How to Defy Kings, How to Kiss Queens
by War of Glass
Summary: Jade and Tori must share a secret: each other. A secret that threatens to surface.
1. Strips of Quintessence

_**How to Defy Kings, How to Kiss Queens**_

_**A Victorious Fanfic**_

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><p>Chapter 1 "Strips of Quintessence"<p>

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><p>The frustrated screams blur out the sound of the shattering glass, or it could be the other way around. A piece of a mirror turns into pieces below the weight of my boot. The mattress finds its way to the other side of the room. My heart finds it way under the wrong end of a knife on the nightstand, and my anger finds its way out of me in spurts of unfocused violence. I feel like I'm losing myself. In my actions, I'm letting this boy define me. The rage is defining me, and I'm being stripped of what I am. He's the only thing that can break me, and he's the only thing that can fix me. For every thrown glass, I imagine every last moment of my dying soul. I remember every moment of that day, not too long ago. The neighbors knock on my front door, calling my name and checking on me. Despite not having anything against them personally, they get the response of a wine glass at the door. This isn't their business anyway. I hate being defined by anything. I can't be put into a category and specified. Lonely, angry, confused, bitter, searching-words I've all heard used to describe me by therapists, so-called friends, generally "concerned" people who assume they know me, even Beck. The only person who'd never offended me was Babette, my first lover.<p>

She was French, with short brown hair and red lipstick. She was the last girl to ever love me, the last girl to ever even try. If I hadn't gone to her house that one day, maybe it wouldn't hurt as bad as it does. It was a sunny mid-afternoon when I let her too far in to the point of no return, storming out of the house with anger running down my face and my heart in my hands. The knife in my back was a dull, jagged one, and all I was able to dig out was the handle. The blade lies there to this day; my heart still lies so heavy. I know it was wrong of me to put such weight on her shoulders, but I wasn't ready then. I'm still not. I couldn't trust the society I've been constructed in, I sure couldn't trust someone constructed in the same. She just couldn't understand why we had to keep our secret, because she couldn't understand the cruelty of humanity. Somehow I think I always understood, even when I was a little girl, stepping on animal's tails and eating bugs. I'm used to being judged. No one understands. No one ever can. So…she never judged me, not like all of the others, but she still found a way to hurt me. Even if it wasn't intentional, she still told a secret. She still told of us, of which I told her never to do. That was in Ohio, where I grew up. I lied and told my good-for-shit parents that I was bullied and beaten up every day by a group of big, burly ass girls in my grade so they would decide to move, and they did.

I had never told Beck, and I never will, not now at least, with everything that's been going on. Hell, I doubt I'd ever tell him if things were sweet roses. That girl's now buried under a hidden and cemented dead life. Now the only thing that ever revisits those dreadful yet incredible times in that dreadful place is my mind, and the scary thing is that sometimes my mind forgets that that place isn't home anymore and it tries to stay. I must remind myself every night that I cannot stay, no matter how good the dream.

Thinking on it now, I was wrong. Beck's not the only one I've lost myself to. There was also Babette, long ago, a beautiful long ago in that dreadful place. In any case, I'll fight to save myself once again, and then I'll keep myself to myself.

The sound of footsteps descending the porch stairs jolts me to reality. It's a sad state of affairs when you find yourself sunken to your knees on top of millions of shards of glass, not being able to look in any mirror but nonetheless knowing you look defeated. What I can look at though is the kitchen and living room, which are both the disastrous result of a war of glass. I manage to carry myself to the bathroom, where I plop down on the edge of the tub and roll up my pant leg. Little scrapes rimming with red decorate my shin like a goddamn Christmas tree. There's a damp rag on the corner of the tub that I use to wipe my war wounds, dabbing at the little cuts and scratches.

The bedroom is a cleansing, and the bed itself is pure purification. During moments asleep, I'm not running on "anger" and "confusion". Then, I just…dream. My eyes blink blankly at a cluster of fish looking at me. I've always hated fish, the mental opening and closing of their mouths, the long, brown strand of shit they leave behind, just all of it. They used to belong to Babette. She always called them her "little lovelies". She never saw me roll my eyes. Beck was always that way with his pet dog, Frankie. He would always talk to it in that sissy-ass baby voice that…that I could never get enough of. Truth is…it didn't matter if Babette cared about meaningless fish, or Beck cared about a mutt. I accepted them as they were. Babette couldn't accept me and Beck…Beck's just…an ass. I was so pissed that I didn't even retain everything that was said. I can't even remember the whole situation…shit…

_The LAX announcer's whiny drawl of a voice buzzes through the long, wide hallways, signaling nearly five hundred people of at least ten different schedules either being delayed or getting ready for departure. He gets up from sitting next to me and grabs a couple of his bags. _

"_Are you going to help me with my stuff?"_

_I grab a navy bag and add it to the pile of stuff he's already holding. He sighs and brushes back his hair. _

"_Jade, are you still upset with me?"_

_I take a long sip of my Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee. He sets his stuff down on a metal rolling cart and then he takes the cup from me and throws it in the garbage. He was always good at reading me. It was empty and he knew it. _

"_Jade, this is for the best, I'm sorry."_

"_Sorry? You're leaving me for six months to film some stupid ass movie in Europe."_

_He sighs, looking up at the plane scheduling. "You know this is my dream."_

"_It's mine, too," I respond with a hiss._

"_Well it's not like I can get you a role, Jade."_

"_I can still come with you," I say, exasperated. Outside of the window to my left, the plane to Illinois takes off into the crystalline sky. I imagine it exploding once it reaches the horizon. _

_He lights a cigarette, following my gaze out the window. "What are you looking at?"_

"_It doesn't matter."_

"_You can't come, Jade. You can't. I…I can't have distractions, you know?"_

"_Is that what I am? A distraction?" My anger lifts up my voice. Bystanders turn their heads to look at the scene I'm making. _

_He makes a motion with his hands that seems to push air down. "Can you calm down?"_

_The thing about Beck and me is that we are always able to see what isn't shown, hear what isn't said. It's all in the eyes. It always has been. I'm silent for a while, looking into his. "Ever since we've met, we've never been that long or far apart."_

_He sighs, taking a drag. The bystanders begin to move again, realizing there won't be an escalation. They're like teenagers. No, worse than us. We start to blend into the crowd again, just two whispered voices in a loud, loud lobby. "It'll be good for us."_

"_What does that mean?" _

_It's clear he hears the hiss and fears the venomous strike, but he stands his ground. "This…separation, it'll be good for our friendship, trust me."_

_I'm silent, looking out of the window, looking at my boots, looking at boarding passengers and crying children. I can't look at him anymore, failing to read his mind. And it hurts to know he's doing this. It hurts knowing he said he never would. "Our…friendship?"_

_Now I'm finally the one looking at him, but it's his eyes that divert this time. His nervous breathing is interrupted every now and again by a drag of the cigarette, which visibly shakes in his hand. "Yeah. Jade…this is more than just a physical separation. I think…I want to be fresh going there, you know? Like what if I meet someone there, on set, or on the beach, you know? It's a whole different world when you finally enter adulthood."_

"_Beck…"_

"_You'll see, Jade. You'll meet someone more…suited for you. You'll meet someone who actually deserves you."_

_The shock turns to frustration, and I feel myself melting like butter. "So let me get this straight. So now you're not only leaving the country for six months to film a movie, but you're also breaking up with me…why?"_

_Even though I ask this, I'm not sure I want a reply. I know the answers. I know them well. I just don't want to hear them spoken. I don't want an "it's me, not you" speech, not to-fucking-day. He opens his mouth to speak but I put my hand up to stop him. If anyone's to say it, I am. It's better than punching him in the face. It's better than breaking down. "You're breaking up with me so you can start fresh…like this is goddamn college or some shit?" My voice rises again, and it trembles. I can hear Beck's plane passengers called for boarding. I lower my head. "You think there'll be better girls than me in fucking Europe? I would have rather you said I'm clingy or some shit."_

_I would have rather you died. I would be lying if I claimed to not be fantasizing about his plane crashing into the ocean. I would be lying if I claimed I didn't feel the urge to cry and just hold him in my arms, silently begging him to stay. I want him to look into my eyes so he can remember us in a blink of the eye. He can remember words from my mouth that only he knows, he can remember my face in ecstasy and in anguish, in slumber and in boredom. I want him to remember every strand of hair, every skin cell, every fiber of being, because somewhere along the line…I'm just not good enough. Babette creeps into my mind, into my remaining soul, and grips it and strains it like a wet rag. I feel myself emptying from it and spiraling down the drain. In one way or the other, I've found some way to destroy two relationships I fell too deep into. And after Babette, I swore I would never beg again. So I do not silently beg him, nor do I hold him close, and I definitely don't cry in front of him. He doesn't deserve my tears anymore. He doesn't deserve my words either, so I swiftly walk away as he stares at me with a dumb expression on his face as people shove by him to the scanners._

The fish stare with expressions as blank as Beck's as I throw around my worn pillowin another frustrated fit. I knock over a lamp, a few schoolbooks, and a pair of jeans in my rage. In retrospect, this is a much safer environment to throw a fit than in the kitchen. I look down at my legs again, red cuts resembling the shape of rice painting my shins. I pick up the pair of torn jeans that fell from the dresser and put them on, careful not to rub too much against the accidental cuts. I put on shoes I already had in my room to avoid getting glass in my feet and hurry to the living room to grab my car keys from the banister and leave the house. I need an escape.

_...the stars, the moon, they have all been blown out …._

The city lights flash and shine like the Las Vegas Strip. My eyes blur, they're so bright. My mother always used to say that if you saw blinding lights, you were reaching Heaven. As a child, it all made sense-bright lights and Heaven should equal peace- now looking back on it, it all seems like a load of bullshit. There's something not right about what she said. Bright lights don't equal something good all of the time. Not this time, at least. I'm not going to Heaven tonight. I'm pretty damn sure I'm driving to a club from my wrecked house. I needed to get out of that place. Home's the opposite of a bright-lit Heaven.

…_no dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight… _

My thumb jabs the radio, turning it off. The damn car can't seem to stay in one lane. Cars honk and drive past me, scared of me running them off of the road or something. The huge club comes into view a while after leaving the freeway. I always find myself scoffing whenever I see it. It's so…modest, but somewhere to lose yourself, so I'm fine with it. It's just the people inside…

My mind's a mess…

The red and black strobe lights numb my mind more than the cheap bar drinks ever could. I'm lost to a sea of faceless and nameless people. They're people who don't matter. The only reason they exist is for me to feel invisible among them. Waves and waves of people, who have come to lose themselves, get drunk, get laid, and have fun. I would tell you what the room smells like, but to be honest I can't really smell at all. But from past experiences, it usually smells of vomit, sex, weed, and shame. Crushed pills are scattered on the floor and the music drowns out all sounds of vomiting, moaning, and crying.

Everyone's a shimmering light, and then a shimmering blur. Things are there one second, gone the next. I feel nauseous and queasy. I think that's the point of strobe lights, seizures until you're dead or dumb. The song ends, the strobe light turn constant for a while. It's intermission time. I shake my head clear and walk towards the pathetic bar. Sometimes I wonder why I frequent this place. It's below me, to be honest. And so are the men, but that doesn't stop one guy from sticking his tongue down my throat. He tastes of said shame and vomit, but still we find our way into my car and to my house, maybe there we'll fall on the littered glass and just bleed out.


	2. Shame

**A/N-read and review!**

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><p>Chapter 2 "Shame"<p>

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><p><em>Somewhere down the ceaseless river is a cave. No light reaches inside. No dust, no air. The rain pours heavy outside, but not a drop inside. No sound resonates inside this cave. This cave can't be called a part of earth. I lie there as mere bones and soul. My skull faces the opening, hollow sockets staring out at the faraway light that cannot reach. My soul carries what my flesh no longer does, and from that I can hear and smell the fresh rain. I've been lying here for centuries. The world hasn't changed. Hundreds of years and the world is still the same. Love is still the same, and so is hate. Life is as hollow as I am, and so is deat<em>_h. The rain pattering on the surface of the slow-moving river carries this to me. It tells me how I'm not missing much, and that it's a blessing I'm where nothing can touch me. _

_Over the years, it's gathered memories that I've lost over time. Some it found on the ancient mountains, others it found in my home, shattered along with the glass that no one bothered to pick up in hundreds of years. Hundreds of years and that home still stands. The memories often come in sound waves, pulsating through my soul and bringing it to tears or laughter or even tears of laughter. Sometimes tears of sadness. But here, none of it lasts for more than a moment. I'm safe here. There's no laughter to be taken away later, and there's no sadness that stays. One particular memory floats to me and rests. Babette forms from the shapeless entity. Babette becomes the entity. She crouches down by me and caresses me in her arms. Like a marionette, I'm helpless but to move to her whim. When I was alive, it was the same way. She smiles at me, and I'm smiling back, but I'm always smiling now. It's strange to think, once all the flesh and nerves were torn away from my body and returned to the earth, my skull was left with an eternal smile. It shows that I really was happy deep inside. Maybe Babette was the reason. Maybe Beck. She sighs and stares down at me. All at once, I begin to remember when I asked her what she thought love was. The entity becomes a conduit between her and me._

"_My idea of an ideal relationship? Hmm…that's hard. Hard because it's really just a feeling, you know? That beautiful feeling when you think "nothing will ever be wrong again with the world". Being able to sit in complete, comfortable silence is wonderful. Being able to talk about anything and everything while knowing you're not being judged by that one certain person. Undying love, you know? Being sure that you'd take a bullet for that person, more than one. Listening to what they have to say and treat it as if you'll never hear it again. Try to remember every single thing they say, because every single thing they say is precious, and it's valuable. Simply loving that person with all that you have and more. Trust, friendship, communication, comfort, intimacy, and just doing random stupid stuff together like playing videogames and watching TV or something. Something that you do everyday should be like a gift when done with that person, you know? An ideal relationship is knowing that this person is your other half, and that you're lucky as hell to have her and you should never let that go, ever. It shouldn't ever be let go of, because if it is, you're not trying hard enough. You should always make sure that person is happy. It's not always about you. In my opinion, it should rarely be about you. It's your job to take care of them and their job to take care of you. It's a "lean back and I'll catch you" deal, which brings me back to trust. All in all, an ideal relationship is simply, in a nutshell, being in love."_

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><p>I awake with a start, jumping up to not see a fish tank, to not see a knocked-over lamp and to not see my old, familiar room. Instead I wake to a mirror hanging on the back of a white bedroom door. Marks paint my torso with red bruises on my breasts and ribs and hickeys on my neck. My hair is a tangled mess and even from across the room I can see I look a mess. Disregarding me, the room is actually not messy. It's meticulously clean, scarily so. Stacks of papers lay across the brown dresser, where pens and pencils sit atop, even the papers crumbled and discarded look like they've been placed in the garbage, not thrown in, but carefully placed. I pull the sheet up to my chest and edge myself out of the bed. The bed is fairly raised and I have to nearly jump to leave it. With my luck, my heel steps on the paw of a little orange and white cat and it shrieks and scurries out of the room. "Shit," I mutter, following it with my eyes until I jump, startled because the guy is leaning in the doorway, surely having heard his pet. He cuts up pieces of an apple and eats them, surely his breakfast. This must be a normal occurrence, because under his shirt is the form of a man who certainly cares about his appearance. And raising my eyes to his, it's probable I've got more hair on my face than he does. He's prettier than most girls at my school, and usually pretty would be one messed up way to describe a man, but in this situation it's the only way to describe such beauty. Looking at this man, I remember how I said his lips tasted of shame and vomit. Now I'm pretty sure that I was tasting me at that moment, not him, and that means I was more drunk than I thought. It takes a while for me to gather my words together.<p>

"I thought I had dragged you to my place, when in reality you dragged me to yours."

He lowers his head and smiles, using his thumb to press down on the blade as it glides smoothly into the thin skin of the fruit.

"Your place is cleaner anyway."

With pearly white teeth gnawing down on a piece of apple, he asks, "Would I be stepping on glass and running into overturned tables?"

Well shit, maybe we _have_ been to my place. "Something like that," I say, rubbing the back of my neck.

"It's not the first time you've thought that, you know."

"What are you talking about?"

He takes the last bite of apple and wipes the knife on his shirt. "I wasn't always as drunk as I made it seem. We've met before. You're the one who always got…what's the word…wasted." He walks into the room and I back up into the bed a little. "I've always sought you out. We've always come here, done our thing, and then you always left. This is the first time you've been sober by morning though."

"I've done this…before?"

"Sometimes, whenever you would have fights with your boyfriend."

"How the hell would you know something like that?"

"While we were…you know, you would always drunkenly complain about it all."

I ease up a little. "Why me?"

"Well, you frequent that place unlike many of the others, you're the prettiest, and…you're good in bed."

I use my fingernail to wipe the sleep from my eyes. "What did I do last night?"

I look up to see a smirk on his face. "Nothing a deviant wouldn't do," he jokes, sitting down in a chair next to the dresser.

As soon as the smirk came, it goes and he looks up at me like a child would do with a hand in the cookie jar. "You don't think I'm weird do you? Is that why you backed away from me?"

"No, I…I'm just a bit hazy right now…" I tell him. I feel foggy, like I'm not all here, like I'm still at home, or an airport…or a cave…

"I do admit my methods are a bit…odd."

"Can I use your shower?"

The injured animal finds its way back into the room, shooting me a glare and hiss before leaping into the man's lap, where he soothes its paw and pets it. "It's down the hall."

I nod him a thank you and awkwardly make my way out of the tense room, where I swear I can feel his eyes on me. I walk into a hallway with the lining of shelves and shelves of imported wine and exotic weapons with the mark of cryptic engravings. My feet feel the softness of plush carpeting. I'm walking on beige luxury. The bathroom stands high and wide. The tub is quite grand, but easily isn't the grandest part of the room. I would say it's the towel racks and the tub linings and the mirror rims, all gold. All beautiful. I'm…I'm not used to this. I feel out of place, and almost…almost unworthy, unworthy of such a place, of being in such luxurious presence. I have never had substantial wealth. I've always felt comfortable in my modesty, and as odd as it is, all of this seems more like filth than my parent's home or mine. White and cream colored towels sit on the counter, as if he knew I would want to wash myself of the night before. I drop the bed sheet and it drifts away and behind me, bunched behind my heels. I stare at myself in the gold-rimmed mirror, bruises and hickeys branding me a "whore", branding me "wrong". There's something in me and I know…I know it's wrong. It's a feeling, or the lack of it. I can't distinguish what kind of pain it is, just that it _is_ pain, and I can't do it anymore. These eyes that stare back at me have the silhouettes of airplanes in them. I see nothing but the silhouette of a young boy making sweet love to dozens of women in a far away country. I look down at my legs and the cuts that engrave into them like cryptic carvings in exotic weapons. I close my eyes and see the Eiffel Tower, and I envision the silhouette of a young girl drinking fancy, imported French wine. I envision her lying on plush carpet, naked and beautiful, comfortable, and in her grand home.

The shower soaks my body and mind, dragging me down with the weight of a wide sea and every living creature that inhabits it. I imagine drowning, and all of the wonderful and terrible things that could come from it. That feeling of absolute helplessness in the middle of a stormy ocean has to feel intense. The feeling of water rushing into your lungs as your last thoughts are of your loved ones and unaccomplished life goals has to be incredible and horrifying. It just has to be. The sad thing is that I feel unworthy of drowning. I feel unworthy of even that. If two totally different people with two totally different minds and hearts find me unworthy of their love, then I'm unworthy of anything, I think. What the hell was so wrong with me? What's the matter with me? For that matter, what the hell am I doing here? Where am I? And what the _hell_ is this guy's name?

The water hits my knees and slides down my legs to my thighs as I sit in the shower. The rag hangs on the "cold" knob, dry and untouched. I wonder if I'll go see Beck's movie when it comes out…

I slowly and repeatedly hit my head against the tiled wall, kicking myself for even contemplating seeing that. It's obviously going to be a piece of shit…like him. I just…I wanna go someplace, like a cave or something where nothing could reach me, ever, and I'd be safe. I'd be safe from everything around me and everything inside me. Such places like that don't exist, I'm sure.

I grab straight for the soap, not even using the rag to clean myself. I run it over my forearms, under my legs, seething once the soap burns my cuts. I need to clean myself. I need to be clean. I need to be.

He turns around and smiles at me when I walk back into the bedroom, the bed sheet wrapped around me again. He hands me my clothes and asks why I bothered to take a shower in the first place. I tell him I don't know.

"Can I have privacy?"

He still has the smirk on his face. "Hmm?"

"Privacy. I have to put my clothes back on."

"You don't have to."

"I was wrong; I do think you're weird".

He slowly walks over and rips the sheet from around my body and he puts his hands on the wall on either side of me. "Look at you naked. You're gorgeous." He leans in closer. The smirk returns and he looks down to what makes me a woman. "I would eat you, and I wouldn't even use a fork."

He smiles at me for moments, before turning around and letting me get dressed in a variation of privacy.

He doesn't look at me as we drive back to the club. He stares straight ahead, a sense of confidence bubbling under the surface of his facial expression. His hand rubs and caresses the gear shift, knowing that I'm looking. When we get to the club, he gets out of the car and opens my door like a gentleman. I don't say thank you. I don't really say anything. I feel uncomfortable but turned on at the same time. I remember the mirror branding me, and I hate that. I hate being labeled, but if anything…if I had to, I'd call it "lost", "searching" at best.

Getting into my car, I hear him shout, "I hope you fight with your boyfriend more often," and then he pulls off. Dangerous, I think. Dangerous. I just let some random guy take me home, more than once, apparently, and I can't even remember last night, let alone the others. It's a blackout. It's self-destruction. But I don't find myself stopping anytime soon. I need an escape, and by god does it feel good for a while. It feels good to just blackout. It's not drowning, it's floating, floating above the earth where nothing can touch me. Home is not where I want to be right now. Some part of me doesn't want to be alone. I think I'll drive to my parent's. I think that's what I'll do. I feel like I need a lecture. It doesn't even have to be about anything big. It can just be me walking into the house with my shoes on, and they always find _something _to bitch about. I feel like I need a true shower, I need to cool down, and my father's cold words are the coldest shower.


	3. Cats and Lions

**A/N-read and review**

**I've been contemplating changing the name of this story. Anyone have a title they think would be fitting?**

**The song in this chapter is Lover's Spit by Broken Social Scene feat. Feist.**

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><p>Chapter 3 "Cats and Lions"<p>

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><p>"She's no good to <em>anyone<em>, least of _all_ herself. She's a walking curse, Mindy, I don't know. I can't say I worry about her, but I think about her."

"Maybe if we treated her like the daughter we love and adore, she wouldn't have moved out and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now to begin with."

"I have no daughter that I love and adore, and if you do then you're too optimistic. The only good choice she's ever made is Beck. But us, you and me, we've never made a good choice."

Dad rests his head in one hand while a cigarette burns in the other. There's not much yelling between him and Mom, but I think that's what makes it that more profound. The kitchen window's steamed up from the hot food inside, so I can't tell if Mom has tears in her eyes or not. I don't know why I'm looking for it, but for some reason I think that detail matters. It would validate in some weird way that my mom really does love me. I've always been close to her. She's been my father and mother all these years and that's a difficult job. She's always taken over the Dad role because he's always been too busy being the teacher, the disciplinarian, the one who by default has to always be disappointed in me. Shit, when I was _born_ he probably grimaced. He turns his head to her with a more somber look than anything, and she gives him a sad smile and puts her hand over his, careful not to burn her fingers. This sort of interaction must be reminiscent of how they were before me, before all of the stress of Jade West. At best, this is at least how they are when I'm not around, because I can swear on my soul this isn't a normal occurrence. I can understand Dad hiding such a thing from me, but not Mom, and I'm sure it's incidental…I think. Dad can go to hell for all I care, but Mom…I never wanted any of this for her, even if she is too cautious for and about me most times.

I remember the first time Babette came over for a "sleepover" and I introduced her as merely a friend. She didn't understand, and she didn't like it. She argued how back in France stuff like that was normal. I argued how she was stupid. It was the first time I had ever used something bad to describe her, and I'm certain it hurt her. It was my intention to and I've always been good at it, but the look on her face instantly made me regret it. The tone in her sweet, accented voice made me falter and rethink everything I've shrouded and made her promise to shroud, as well. That was not the first time we'd fought. It was just another nail in the coffin. Despite me calling her merely a friend, my mother must have saw something deeper, because the little smile and wink she offered wasn't one of innocence, it was one of a shared secret. Mom always saw deep and accepted deeper.

As much as I hate to break up their love fest, it grows cold as the day creeps on so I walk through the bushes and up the porch. The steps are as I remember them from the last time I visited, cracked and worn when Dad was _supposed_ to fix them. He was never really a fix-it man and when it came to things that needed to be fixed, I was the one to do it. The only reason the steps never became a part of that was because he got pissed one day when he couldn't do it right and I stepped in to finish while he was at work. He came home, yelled at me, and told me to stop. I never touched the damn thing again. The toe of my shoe gets caught in a crack and I fight with the fissure for a little before I'm able to free myself. I take in a deep breath and knock on the door. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I prepare for the ritualistic greeting that never fails.

Dad opens the door, cigarette ash falling to the ground in front of us. He steps to the side so I can come in. I forgot to mention that our greeting isn't actually a greeting at all, and I'm fine with that. Mom jumps up from the chair and embraces me in a hug, but not before trying to hide the fact that she just wiped away tears from her face. Usually Mom scolds me for what I'm wearing, but today she doesn't. She brushes the hair from my face and looks at me with some sort of annoying thoughtful contemplation. She sees me often enough, so it puzzles me why she has to look at me like a museum artifact. It makes me uneasy, she never does this. The only person she always looked at this way was Beck. With even Babette, she would look and then look away. She and my dad always ogled at Beck. He has that effect on people. To be honest, no one looked at me like they looked at Beck. Not my parents, not Babette. Beck was the only one. He was pretty much the only one I ever allowed to look at me like he did. I wasn't some damn spectacle, but to him I guess I was.

"Are you keeping yourself up?" Mom asks, licking her finger and wiping away something on my face.

I partially push and ease her away as I go to sit down where Dad was sitting. "All ten fingers and toes."

I never really thought of it before, but Mom really does try to pamper me. She tries to balance out the very unequal scale we call the West family. Dad cares little, Mom cares a lot, Dad cares less, and Mom cares more. It becomes indifference, and the other becomes smothering. Both Babette and Beck always told me that I have a nice family, no matter how often I complain about them. Then after that, Babette would sing French songs to me and when Beck came along, we would watch movies and go for coffee. It didn't matter what time of day, he knew I always was in the mood for coffee and he would always get me one. And as for Babette, I can't name the amount of times I fell asleep in her arms. I felt safe with her. I didn't feel like a shameful secret. I didn't feel like she did. I think that was the problem all along.

"Where's Beck?" Dad asks, looking out into the neighborhood street before closing the door and setting the alarm.

I gulp as if I'm guilt of his murder or something. "He's…he didn't come today. He's filming a movie overseas."

"Oh! Good for him!" Dad sounds more proud of Beck than he ever has of me. It's not like I've done anything noteworthy in my life, anyway. Like he said, the best thing I ever did was be with Beck. Even before he said that, I've questioned it myself. Who was better for me, Babette or Beck? They think Beck obviously. Everyone has to think Beck because he's all I've ever had to the public eye, so there's nothing to compare to.

Babette was always in the dark, ironic since I often considered her my light. But in the dark is where she needs to stay, because no one looks into the dark, people only hide there.

It's been an awkward silence for longer than I realize, and I clear my throat to break it. Dad finishes his cigarette as soon as he finishes his examination of me with his dark, narrow eyes. He stalks into the living room, and I hear the TV turn on and the couch fabric sink in.

Mom gives me a sad look sprinkled with a façade of hope she plans on giving me. I see right through her. "He's had a long day, Jade."

"Yeah." I get up from the chair and head upstairs, not wanting to get caught up in another one of Mom's attempts to defend her husband's coldness. My old bedroom is the same as always, only cleaner. Mom made me get a new bed and leave this one so I'd have a place to sleep if I ever decided to spend the night. She also made me leave a few posters on the wall and socks on the ground to "give it that old familiar feel". I hurry into the dark bedroom and plop down on my old bed. I cover my eyes with my hands and exhale deeply. I'm not sure if it's the result of a wild few nights or the exhaustion from dealing with my parents but I'm beat. I'm dead tired. A pointless football game blares down below as I drift away.

_We rest by a sleeping tree while her accented voice soothes me into drowsiness and a sense of security. The stars in the sky never really appealed to me before tonight, but that's really because I'm still not even looking. With all of the city fumes, I'm shocked they're still even visible. Her soft breath against my neck is the wind, and her eyes are my stars. She gives me one last smile before turning her head back up to the sky. We're both observing two different phenomenon, but both are magnificent. I'm limp in her arms as if I'm dying in one final embrace. The grass tickles the back of my hand that simply lies there, like the rest of me, in peace. _

"_Can I ask you a question?"_

"_Huh?"_

_She looks from the sky back down to me. "I have a question, Beauté." she repeats, planting a kiss on my forehead._

"_What is it?"_

_She hesitates, looking out at the city lights and concrete streets far in the distance. "Have you told anyone about me?"_

"_No."_

_I see her nod her head in the night darkness. She licks and bites her lip. "I've told someone about you."_

_I sit up, staring at her. I can't tell if it's an incredulous, angry, or fearful look. My face feels contorted into all three. She stares back at me with wide blue eyes. Her grip is tight on my wrist, her other hand frozen where my head laid earlier. "Who?"_

_She begins to smile._

"_Who did you tell, Babette?"_

"_Kernel."_

_My eyes go wide and I collapse back into her arms, really dying this time. The biggest exhale exudes into the air. "Your dog?"_

"_He listens to me. He's really adorable. He keeps all of my secrets."_

_I still reel from the adrenaline. "Jesus, Babette…"_

"_He knows more secrets than you do."_

"_I'm pretty much your biggest secret so everything else kind of takes a backseat, don't you think?"_

"_You're angry with me."_

"_You just scared me, that's all. I didn't realize it was going to be that damn dog."_

_I can tell that she's sad, but not because of what I said about Kernel. Really, I do like the little thing, and I hate talking this way to Babette. She just scared me. She literally frightened me. "He's a good boy," she says, melancholic. _

_It's a while before either of us talks again until she breaks the silence. "I wish we didn't have to be a secret." She looks at me with those wide eyes again. "I love you, Beauté," she says with a faint voice and soft accent. _

_I wonder if she feels me tense up. I hate when she says those words. The word "love" is an iceberg, and carries much more than it shows. "I wish we didn't have to be one either, but we are, and it has to stay that way, okay?"_

_She doesn't answer me. She just goes back to her gazing of the polluted sky and her silent musings. It's like this for a while before she drifts off to drowsiness, her head resting against the trunk of the slumbering tree. I look at her for a while and admire her. I wiggle my way out of her arms and slide over to lay right next to her to where she's facing away from me. She's not quite asleep but that's good enough for me. The coincidental thing about her is that she has bad hearing in her left ear, so I tentatively cup it with the palm of my hand and speak softly into the back of it. It acts as a microphone for me but a muffler for her, and I pray she doesn't hear when I whisper, "I love you, too." _

"Your father really cares for you, you know," my mom says, and I open my eyes. Mom stands in the doorway, her arms folded and her face contemplative.

I sit up on the bed, rubbing my eyes. "Funny."

She looks at me with that odd expression again, as if she's trying to figure me out and see what Dad hates so much.

"I'm serious."

Loud cheers echo up the stairs from the living room, and following that is the loud bellow of a victorious spectator.

Hearing him cheer and be proud of grown men he will never know makes me angry, but in turn it also reminds me of something I did that actually _was_ worthwhile. "Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you remember when I won like three spelling bees in a row in elementary?"

She smiles and says, "Of course."

"Dad doesn't." In a way, me saying that is daring her to defend him now, but she says nothing.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and Mom stands quietly as I read the text message. It's from Cat, asking if I'm okay and telling me to come over. In vintage Cat fashion, there's a smiley face alongside the words. I press "back" and I see the previous messages I've been sent. The last one is from Beck from two months ago. Only I would have their very last text conversation be from two months ago. The conversation ends with him saying "I love you". He loves me. Beck loves me…Beck loved me. He loved me two months ago.

"I have to go, Mom," I say, getting up from the bed.

"Well, just be safe and know that I love you."

I smirk and put my hands on her slim shoulders. "Mom, if you think I'm gonna safe, and you love me," I lean in closer, "Then you're too optimistic."

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><p>When I reach Cat's home and knock, she opens the door with a little bit too much enthusiasm. Even Cat can't be that happy to see me. She half-hugs half-pulls me into the living room which is right by the front door. She's running on her toes, like taking the time to plant her whole foot on the ground will slow her down.<p>

"My parents are asleep upstairs so we have to be quiet!" she says.

"But Cat, you just slammed the door."

She turns around and hushes me ironically loudly, a finger straight up and down in front of her pursed lips which are covered in obnoxious pink-colored lipstick. We hurry through the living room and run up the stairs. Luckily for her the whole house is carpeted or her parents would certainly be awake right now and most likely angry. But I know Cat's parents really well, angry for them is not letting her have cupcakes for an hour or two whenever they make them, and sometimes they're generous and let it go after twenty minutes or so. She leads us into her bedroom, leaping onto her bed with a giggle as I close the door. Soft music plays in the background on the radio. Two textbooks lay on her floor with a pen lying in the spine of one book, and a pencil in the spine of the other. She's been doing homework, and from the looks of it, a lot of homework. Since it's June, I've shut down from school completely, not that I've been very involved to begin with. I didn't have the chance to take off my shoes at the front door so I do it now, sitting down in a beanbag chair and untying the laces. It's only when I toss them toward the door that I notice Cat's looking at me with a sad tone to her, like she's speaking but she's not.

"Why'd you ask if I'm okay?"

Cat's eyes open wider as if she was in some sort of dream state. She brushes back her red hair and sighs. "I heard about you and Beck."

My mouth goes dry. "Who told you?"

"Well, he did, silly. He texted pretty much everyone telling them about it and telling us to…" she stops and stares at me, maybe afraid to continue. "…just let it go if you seem angry or irritated."

"Did he?"

"Yep!" she answers me, and then she's back to her perky self. She jumps up from the bed and hurries over to me, sitting down on the soft carpet in front of me. The carpet's not as soft as the stranger's plush carpet, but it feels more right to me. It feels safer. "So I've got the best idea to cheer you up. We're gonna do make-up."

"I don't need cheering up, Cat," I say, rolling my eyes.

She takes my hand in hers. "You're sad, Jade. I can see it in your eyes, and when I touch your hand I can feel it in your bones. You're sad." She gives my hand a squeeze and smiles sweetly. "Be happy!"

I exhale and smile back at her, which only makes her smile grow wider. She doesn't even wait for me to respond before she yelps in joy and pulls me up with her and over to the huge mirror on top of her dresser. I snatch away my arm as she gets out a make-up kit. "I'd rather find something else to do than play Barbie, Cat. Is that why you have all that lipstick on, by the way?"

"Yeah…" she answers, contemplating what to do instead. I can tell by the arch in her eyebrow that never fails when she's thinking hard. And Cat thinks hard about what to have for breakfast in the morning. Despite her pondering, the choice is always cereal. A light bulb shines over her head as she runs to her radio, turning up the music slightly. "Not too loud so my parents don't get mad."

I laugh. "What are we doing?"

"Dancing, duh!" Cat says. She does a weird little dance, pointing her fingers, narrowing her eyes, pursing her lips. She's trying to act cool…but she's Cat. She's like the female Robbie, but she's adorable. I love her. She'll always be the first friend I made when I moved here from Ohio. She takes on a more serious tone when she wraps her arms around me. Her small frame gets lost in mine as we slowly dance in the room. She looks up at me from time to time to see if I'm enjoying myself. I don't know whether to fake an expression or not, because I don't know if I'm enjoying it or not, to be honest.

"I love this song."

"What is it?" I ask.

"I have no idea."

After a few minutes I do remember it. I heard it in a movie once. Cat's wrapped tight around my waist. It's as if she's trying to hold me up and keep me from the dark abysses below. I have half a mind to kiss her on the forehead and tell her that it's too late, but thanks for trying. Cat's always been brave, no matter what people think. Especially when we had first met, I was like a lion to her, vicious and protective. To keep the story short, she never backed down, and look where we are. In hindsight, _she's_ the lion and _I'm_ the cat. I'm sure she'd die to protect me, and I'd die for her. She's my sister, if there's any way to put it. And I don't think she'll ever leave. She won't be Babette, or Beck, or my father. She'll be what she is now, my sister, my mother, my guardian, my best friend. I can't imagine anyone else reaching me this way again. It was really only her and Beck, and now there's only her. I smile, realizing that she is, in fact, holding me up from the darkness. I'd be dead otherwise. She sees the smile, and it's not fake. It's genuine. Holy hell. It's genuine.


	4. A Warrior's Horse

**A/N-Read and review!**

**Song recommendation: Band of Horses-Monsters **

**And also, when it comes, happy holidays!**

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><p>Chapter 4 "A Warrior's Horse"<p>

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><p>"<em>Please don't do this."<em>

"_You're cold, Jade. I just can't take it anymore. The passion's gone, Jade. It's gone, and I'm sorry. I love you, and I always will, but…there is no more of us. We were a candle that burned out and lost its wick. We're nothing anymore. We can't be anything again."_

"_Stop…"_

"_You can't change, and that's not even what I'm asking. I'm just…we're over, Jade. I can't take it anymore. I can't take the sarcasm and the emotionless looks. I can't take the lack of passion. We don't make love anymore, Jade. Neither of us can call it that. It's touching. It's friction. That's all it is now." He runs a hand through his perfected hair. "Whenever we get coffee, you don't drink it. You just sit there in silence." He gives an exasperated laugh. "Even if I try to spark up a conversation, you don't talk."_

"_Beck, please, stop."_

_He puts a finger to his temple, and his dark eyes grow wider. "What goes on up there? What's so wonderful? When you get lost up there, do you realize people miss you back on earth?" The rare anger in him protrudes through his voice and taints the air. "Who can love you? You're a disaster!"_

"_IT'S NOT SAFE IN HERE!" I screech, jabbing a finger of my own into my temple over and over again. "And it's not safe out here!" The rage dies as soon as it was born. All that's left is the normal feeling of sorrow. "When I'm out here, I experience everything someone should never." I look at him. I see hurt on his face and perhaps it's on mine as well. "When I'm in there, in my mind, I reflect on what I experienced." I tilt my head and give a broken, twisted smile of incredulity. "Do you honestly believe I'm safe anywhere, Beck? I wouldn't be safe if I was dead."_

_Beck lowers his head to where his hair hides him. I wish I could look into his eyes. We could always communicate through the eyes, say things unsaid. I've always loved that. I've always hated it sometimes, too. When his head rises, he's no longer the Beck I know. In his place is Babette. Her hair is in curls that spin around her soft ears and curve around her neck like vines around an abandoned, stone building in France. Her eyes are always so wide, and they remind me of Cat's. Suddenly she's so close, and I can feel her trembling breath and the hidden sobs inside like little balls of light hidden in raindrops, shattering and contorting into darkness once they hit the ground. Her pale skin appears to glow with the sun shining through the airport window. She appears golden. _

_Between her fingers she slowly and innocently twirls the forever green stem of a flower I gave her long ago, a flower to declare that the walls of Jade West's kingdom have dropped down, and only she was allowed in to speak to the Queen, to speak to the heart. I collapse to my knees in front of her. I pull her close to me, my arms wrapped tight around her legs and the side of my head resting on her stomach, her shirt's soft clothe supporting me. I don't look up at her. Instead I gaze out of the window at the sun, trying to keep tears of weakness inside. _

"_Please don't do this," I say again, and I still don't look up at her. Maybe I want the sun to relay the message she sends for me. I just really don't want to hear her sound like Beck, criticizing every part of me and breaking me down. On the other hand, I just really want to hear her voice. I want to hear that nickname she gave to me, "Beauté."I want her to laugh my name, moan it, whisper it._

_She holds me back, her arms wrapping around my head, holding me like a mother would. She leans down and kisses the top of my head. "Oh, Beauté," she sighs. She says it as if I've done something terribly, terribly wrong. When I hear her voice, I break composure and a tear falls down my cheek. It falls alone, just like everything involving me had always been before I met her and Beck: alone. My walls have fallen again and I don't think I'll ever have the strength to rebuild them. Out the window, a plane lifts up off of the ground and takes flight. My gaze follows it and I don't imagine it exploding once it reaches the horizon. I imagine it turning into a bird and flying away. I imagine Babette turning into a bird and flying away. _

_Despite my sudden vulnerability and the thought that if I see her I'd shatter and crumble, I look up at her finally. She's smiling down on me, a golden smile. I realize that if I let her go, I'll never see that goddamn smile again. We stare at each other for moments, two comfortable stares that collide and meld. "Oh, Beauté." _

I wake up to something soft pulling away from me, and then it stands still and tense. My hand runs through a cut-up curtain, running through the gaps between my fingers like feathers. A whimper of confusion and nervousness from someone alerts and grabs me by the throat. I open my eyes to see Cat, her eyes are wide and she's backed up into the bed's headboard. Her hands are balled into tight fists by her sides, as if she was being squeezed to death. I still don't register anything until I feel her soft tongue sliding across the side of mine. I realize that soft something were her lips trying to pull away from me as I advanced on her. I realize that cut-up curtain were her red strands of hair, and that whimper was her. What had me by the throat now pulls me by it into reality.

We break apart slowly. There's a low, damp sound when our lips part from each other. Now my eyes are wider than hers, my mouth hangs open in horror and disbelief. Feeling must have been transported through our lips because Cat shares my expression, but she looks more scared and confused. She tentatively touches her lips with her fingers, not once taking her cautious eyes off of me.

"Who-who's Babette?..." she whispers.

I can't bring myself to respond. I move myself from on top of her and simply stand in the middle of the room. The sounds that keep this from being completely silent are the radio still playing from last night and the birds singing songs for an early morning sun. My hands imitate hers and clench into fists. They tremble at my sides, and my eyes burn into her. If she looked like she was being squeezed too hard, I must look like pressure is building up inside of me. I know me, and I know I must look menacing, but she doesn't shrink away more than she has. She still stares up at me, like I stared up at Babette in that far away land. Unlike my other dreams, this was one that never actually happened. This wasn't a memory. Beck never told me such things, and I never responded as such. I had never fallen to my knees in front of Babette. I'd never fallen to surrender.

I almost walk out of the room without a word. But it's Cat, and she's my friend, and this was all a mistake, so I tell her I have to go. I owe her that much, but I don't wait for a response. I walk out of the room this time and straighten out my bed hair and ruffled jacket. Cat's mother turns with a smile already plastered on her face and asks if I want breakfast, but I decline and head out through the front door, mulling over how she didn't even ask why I was there. As I walk down the driveway, I look back to see Cat now in the living room window, peeking out through the curtains at me, her eyes still wide, her lips practically sewn shut.

I want to stop but my feet keep walking to the car. I sigh and mutter out "Cat" like I must have muttered out "Babette" in my sleep. I wonder if I laughed when I said it, moaned it, or whispered it.

I kissed her in my sleep. I saw Babette, but touched someone completely different. Cat's always reminded me of Babette, but I've never meant to act on the comparison. Never. Cat and I meet eyes once more when I put the car in reverse and press the acceleration. I pull out of her driveway and down the street. I need to clear my head. I need to cloud it. A half-filled pop can tumbles over in the car when I make a left turn, and I mutter "shit" when light-colored green liquid seeps into my passenger seat. I bend down to try and pick up the can that's fallen and I feel the car run over something. I pull over to a curb in front of a university and look behind me. A stray dog struggles for life in the middle of the grimy road. A streak of pulpy red blood trails back to my wheels. Shit. I pinch the bridge of my nose with two fingers, sighing. It's a cliché pose, one reserved for when idiots run over animals in the street.

Okay, it's evident that I'm a mess. Where do I go from here? What do I say to Cat? Do I even say anything if she doesn't ask? What would I say? "Cat, Babette is my ex. She's a wonderful gal."? Cat's sweet, but she couldn't understand something like that, especially if I still can't. The fact of the matter is that I have a mess to clean up, and I can do that by lying to my first ever friend from my new life or not. But for now, I need to get my act together before I run over a human, or even worse, another dog.

I turn off the car and hurry around it and into the street. The looks on people's faces are priceless mixtures of panic and anger as they swerve to avoid hitting me. The only thing muting out their curses and shouts are their blaring horns. My black and white Converse follow the trail of fire until they point to the carcass of a dog once named something, once breathing, and once valued.

The drivers and pedestrians can't understand. They look at me as if I'm crazy for doing this. It doesn't matter if they're across the street or standing in a crowd watching, I can hear their snickers and their whispers to each other. This is California; otherwise I'd probably know some of them. I'd probably threaten their lives and their family's lives for making a mockery of me. Then again, I guess it _is_ weird to pick up road kill and carry it to your trunk like you just rescued it from a burning building. Quite the opposite actually, I set the fire. Everything I touch turns to it.

After putting the dog in the trunk, I get back into the car and rev it on. The music blares over the engine. Monsters by Band of Horses echoes through the quiet, observing street. And by street, I mean street, even the buildings are looking at me strange. All of these people whispering about me. All of these people must have seen me kiss Cat. All of these people must have seen me cry in Babette's arms. All of these people must have seen me fall to surrender.

I pull off and relish at how I'm this close to running a few of them over. They put me on a pedestal I didn't even know existed. I wonder how I would have reacted if it was one of them I'd run over instead. We should come up with a new term for people sometime soon, because "humanity" just isn't cutting it anymore. Humans are just another species of animal. I speed down the wide street until I can't see any of the bystanders anymore. I've wandered into a festival, one of many around. I think it's the Make Music Pasadena Music Festival. A group of young women with acoustic guitars strapped around their shoulders make their way across the street, and make me slow down in the process. One of them is muttering to herself and practicing her strings. I can see her mouth forming E, A, D, G, B, E as she plucks and strums gently. You know, Babette never was musically inclined. I smile as I remember how I used to tease her about it. She had a wonderful voice, but sadly she also owned a piano and a guitar and was dead set on mastering both.

Being the wonderful girlfriend I was, I always sat either in the living room floor while she played the piano or in her bedroom and listened to her practice and "play" the guitar. I wonder if she ever mastered them. Now, she could be at this festival for all I know, but then…let's just say she wasn't Beck when it came to such things. To be honest, I have half a mind to park my car and search for her in there. She would always close her eyes as she rubbed her soft fingertips over the course wires, painstakingly trying to remember the sounds more so than the strings and chords themselves, sort of like that woman crossing the street was doing, but I'm sure she knew the strings. And don't even get me started on how hard it was for her to even understand what the fret board _did_. I mindlessly look through the window mirror and catch myself smiling a huge grin, but all the while, contradictory tears slyly escape the prisons of my eyes. My eyes look like polluted oceans, dark green and watery. Babette once told me my eyes were so clear that she could see my soul through them, and in my soul she saw herself. I remember I upset her by laughing that day. I mean, it's a ridiculous claim, isn't it? But I don't remember if I laughed at her for saying she could see herself in my soul, or for saying I had one.

Remembering back, Babette used to say a lot of things. She was a teenage philosopher, and knowing the idiots that I am forced to cohabitate with in school all the time, teenage philosophers are rare nowadays. In a hundred years, people will look back and skip my generation until they reach the 20th century. The 21st century is full of partiers and potheads, especially where I live. They will skip past and past until they reach at least Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison, then they'll have that bigoted asshole Hemingway or the Charlie Sheen of his day, F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's funny how they mirror the people of today, but at least they still had words to say, beautiful words. They had beautiful minds. They'll keep going and going until Edgar Allan Poe, and Oscar Wilde of the 19th century, and everyone from there on. We'll be forgotten unless someone stumbles upon an ancient red party cup or an anti-gay sign carved from stone that they said God supported.

Anyways, Babette told me one night that a warrior's horse leads them to battle, but mine is programmed to lead me to escape. That was the night she ended it, the night she ended me, the night she ended _us_. She called me a coward, but it wasn't in an angry or hostile voice. It was a sad voice, a defeated voice. A voice that deafened me by whispering.

I accelerate again, wiping the pollution away from my cheeks with a sleeve. I maneuver past the pedestrians and the festival venders and stands that sell fake miniature plastic guitars and others that sell candy and cheap hot dogs. Beck once ate ten hot dogs at once and called himself a "food slut". He opened his mouth full of food to annoy me and I couldn't stop laughing. I can't stop laughing _now_. I shake my head, denying the right for any more pollution, and more importantly, I shake my head to clear it. There's a leak somewhere, and it's letting out things it shouldn't let out, and letting things in that shouldn't get in.

At home, I open the trunk as soon as I get the car into the garage. The dog lies still and cold, now colder. I drop to my knees and squeeze my eyes tight, but I still begin to weep. It's a pathetic weep. A weep someone like Robbie would do. I try to pretend it's over this lifeless dog, but one of the few people I can't fool is myself. How could I have been so stupid? Babette was so smart and unwittingly old for her age, Cat is sweet but she's definitely not the next Oscar Wilde. I kissed Cat and made love to Babette. I looked into Cat's eyes and looked into Babette's clear oceans.

They're so different, but the mistake is all the same.


End file.
